I literally have no idea what you're talking about. Are you confusing calorie bulking as "eating lots of junkfood"? Because while the two are kind of similar, they're very different. Athletes, especially ones that do lots of endurance sports and marathons, will carbload/calorieload, but those are part of strict diet regimens, they don't eat like crap all the time and for no reason. Bottom line is that exercising doesn't burn off a lot of calories, several hours of intense exercise will burn only a few hundred calories at most. Exercise will not do anything to stop weight gain from overeating. You could also try honey. It's still sugar, but it's in a more natural form from processed sugar. I use honey in almost everything instead of sugar these days. Of course, nothing beats a real chocolate cookie, sadly.
Look at Phelp's diet. That's a lot more than a "few hundred calories". Sorry to say, but exercising is a better way to lose calories than simply not eating.
Oh I love honey. I put it in Greek yoghurt, on toast, in tea... I've tried to use it to appease my sweet tooth, to varying results. It's a fairly good replacement. But you're right... Not much replaces the sinful goodness of chocolate. Maybe I should move to a country where chocolate is not a thing.
I don't know what this means. What does Phelp's diet have to do with exercise not burning off more than a few hundred calories? This is a confusing and kind of a loaded comment. No one is even arguing that exercising is inferior to not eating or whatever, the point is that exercise burns scant amounts of calories and you won't lose weight if you eat too many calories but exercise a little bit in return.
Intense exercise doesn't just burn a scant amount of calories. This is the point. Just go read about it.
Guys, this thread is heading to Debate Room territory again. I can already see the links coming, the scientific studies, the strawmen and ad hominems. No thanks, let's keep things more lighthearted here.
While I guess that links to studies and scientific articles are meant for some kind of debate room area of the forum (and at risk of 'breaking the rules' so quickly after a moderator laid them down), let me just say that I'll agree to disagree with you and we can drop this here. However, for what it's worth and if others are interested, this is a decently written Vox article that goes over a lot of exercise-to-calorie-burnt stuff. It's worth checking out. https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-myth-burn-calories
Here are a few things I do, habits I've gotten into that help keep those sneaky extra pounds down. YMMV: * Step on the scale first thing every morning because awareness helps hugely (to me). * No calories in drinks, as a rule. I either drink ice water or drinks with no sugar or fake sugar. (Exceptions are skim milk and wine). A Coke is about 140 calories so no calories in drinks rule saves many pounds per year. (A pound is 3,500 calories). I'm not sure if fake sugar is okay or not so recently I'm trying to get used to unsweetened coffee and tea. I'm not crazy about it but really, not insisting that everything has to taste wonderful is another good habit, I think. Side notes: Caffeine is a mild appetite suppressant. No juice. Eat the whole fruit instead. * No dessert or sweets, with very rare exceptions. If I crave sweets, I have something with fake sugar or fruit. Craving for sweets has calmed way down after getting used to doing without. * Count calories (at long stretches of time but then I do fall off it now and then). It's not hard after awhile because I tend to eat the same things a lot and get their calorie counts memorized. I use online calculators to figure up my current daily calorie limit. * Try to have a few things ready or nearly so that are low calorie so I'm not tempted to gorge when I'm hungry and tired. Popcorn, sugar-free jello, cut up carrots and celery with salt and so on. * Make big pots of homemade, low calorie soups to freeze and consider a bowl of soup dinner. * Try to not be kitchen or food-focused. Low cal, simple but tasty meals and only one main meal per day. * When I cook fancier, more fattening stuff for guests or when given fattening food gifts, throw them away or give them away as soon as possible. * Look over restaurant menus online and have my dinner picked out before going there. * Try to drink at least 64 oz. of water per day (which can include drinks besides straight water). Staying hydrated keeps energy level up and hunger down. * It all starts at the store. My cart will be full of fish, chicken, seafood and vegetables. Skim milk, fat-free cottage cheese. * Get dinner planned and prepped early in the day so less likely to get restaurant food when hungry and tired later, then get out of the kitchen. * Accept feeling a little hungry when losing weight. Not miserable or dizzy or anything extreme but just mildly uncomfortable sometimes. It means you're succeeding. * Use other small things as rewards, like paint nails after cleaning house, not cookies. * Eat off salad plates, not dinner plates. Portions in the US are typically too much but a half empty plate looks kinda sad, so that works for me. * Expect to take a break sometimes. Today I'm having pizza (Super Bowl party) but counting the calories and not too many slices. I'll make it up in the coming week. I'll probably list more later. I didn't realize I had cultivated so many good habits, usually only notice the negative ones. I feel like we are swimming upstream to not be overweight. Our culture (USA) is horrible on us for that, explaining over 75% adults being overweight in the US. Anyone else?
If you want any of my feedback, I think you're avoiding fat a little much. Fat is very good for you and very good for keeping your energy up, and "fat makes you fat" has been a longstanding diet myth in the west. Of course if you're operating just fine off your current lifestyle, then you're doing fine and obviously do what works for you, but you don't be afraid of buying non-fat free versions of food.
Not debating. Merely speculating. I can only imagine that a large cause for the wide disagreement on diet and exercise comes down to the too often unspoken third part of health and fitness--genetics. Everyone knows some who can't get fat. Everyone knows someone who can't get skinny. Everyone knows someone that seems to constantly be in the gym but never looks muscular. Everyone knows someone who seems to just look at a weight and gets big. Bodies are different.
@TheRealStegblob- Yes, I am tired a lot and stuck a few pounds over what I want anyway, so being lethargic from cutting out too much fat might well be accurate. However, I don't follow my rules perfectly, either, although pretty well (pizza today at the Super Bowl get together, for ex). But yeah, overall very little fat. Another thing, I have fallen out of my exercise routine for the past few months and only keep my weight even by eating very little. Got to get back on it and also back on drinking lots of water. Strangely, the low calorie eating is the easiest part of it all for me to stick with. I think when you are only a few pounds over, those few pounds seem the hardest to get off and keep off, although I am not sure why it's that way. I was always too thin when I was young and didn't understand why everyone wasn't lol.
I agree, 123456789. Metabolism varies, as I learned with age. Also, I think how attached people are to food varies hugely, or whatever you'd call it. Same as how attached people are to their stuff varies (from minimalist to hoarder). I feel fortunate that I don't feel too extremely deprived when I diet. Food is not my go-to comfort.
Oh yeah, if you're tired a lot then you should really increase your fat consumption. Chicken thighs are very fatty and dirtcheap, especially if you're able to buy bone-in skin-on (which I do. It's always under 1.90 a pound where I am, which is remarkably cheap for meat). You have to cut the bone out and rip the skin off if you don't want those on your chicken, but it's no problem for me. There's also the fat staples, like heavy cream, butter, nuts and if you absolutely need to: supplementing with straight up cod liver oil. My girlfriend puts butter and cream directly in her tea in order to get her required amounts of fat.
Did y'all know low fat in your diet also makes your hair and skin dry? I didn't connect it to energy, so thanks. Good point.
Oh yeah. It can make your finger/toenails thin, too. A lack of fat does all sorts of negative things to your body. It's crazy, but the sugar industry actually spent hundreds of millions of dollars paying for skewed research to prove that fat was bad and sugar was good, leading most Americans to have the view of "fat is bad and makes you fat", when in reality it's a evolutionary staple of our basic diet.
It's funny how so many of our problems are kinda problems of luxury. A leisure lifestyle without having to do manual labor has its price to pay.
I think a lot of athletes have special nutritionists that advise them, whether they take any notice is another thing I guess. Don`t you guys think that all this is also subject to a little bit of balance as well, not obsessing too much on any one thing. I find it easy to tip over into that area where you think about it a little bit too much. If you know what I mean. PS - Honey has a lot of health benefits as well, not just as a sugar replacement.
Don't diet. Swim 5 days a week, or I used to. I've gotten out of the habit and lately have been entertaining a round, new guest. I think I'm going to buy new goggles soon and kick him out.
Not true. Do an hour of intense swimming and you've burned off about a thousand or so calories. I don't know the exact math. All I know is that I used to do competitive swimming and I was always hungry and no matter how much I ate, I still lost weight. This goes without saying, but there's obviously a limit. If you eat like a maniac with no regard to anything, you'll gain weight. But, if you really exercise, the limit goes up dramatically.
Swimming is high-end calorie burning, but an hour of intense swimming will only burn off around 500-750 calories or so. https://www.active.com/triathlon/articles/how-many-calories-does-swimming-burn I mean, if you could theoretically swim for long hours at a time, but even an hour of intense swimming is really intense and most normal people can't do it. You're still hardly burning off the calories of a single muffin.
You're probably right. I used to swim 3.5 hours a day for practice so I guess that's why. I strongly recommend it. I'm just saying, the luxury of being able to eat whatever and still be in decent shape is totally worth it to me.
I'd love to swim myself, but there's nowhere to really do it around where I live. Unless I want to swim in a nearby lake, which is infamously fucking dirty. If I had enough for a private pool or something, I'd spend at least 3-4 hours a week swimming, probably.
I saw you mentioned a ketosis diet. I'm trying to get off the heavy carbs, sugary foods, and processed foods. The first two aren't *too* hard for me to manage but the last one is outright confusing for me. Do you have any advice for more easily finding meats that aren't processed? Including chicken, red meat, fish, etc. Also, when you say "as long as you fast correctly", could you give some examples of what you mean? I'm interested. P.S. It is my understanding that if you're going to try a ketosis diet that you need to have a good fat-intake. I'd like to know your thoughts on that since you've tried the diet.
